11-02-2010, 03:08 AM
Over 27 years ago, just a few months before our daughter was born (at home) my wife and I made the decision to:
a. not vaccinate her
and
b. home school her.
We had already made the decision to home-birth her.
Not out of any religious zealotry, not out of ignorance, but out of being smart educated people with access to information and a drive to learn the truth about these things. We chose to commit ourselves to what was best for our daughter. The decision was not easy- there was family pressure and social stigma for anyone going that "radical." We were literally kicked out of one Ob-Gyn's office for questioning his methods. We had been dealing for months with the pressure not to "attempt" a "risky" home birth.
We then found a wonderful midwife whom we paid $300 in advance for the birth (it was illegal)...The best $300 I ever spent. We had a great pregnancy and the sweet lady was on call 24/7 and answered her phone on the first ring...and she knew a thing or two about what we were going through!
There was plenty of mainstream press telling us that our daughter (and her mother) would likely die in a home child birth or our daughter would die from some disease if we followed what we knew in our hearts to be right.
We suffered through, deflected and absorbed the barbs of friends, family and society. We educated people when we could, but were generally regarded as idiots.
Hannah is now a healthy, vibrant young woman with a Bachelor's degree in English, an ability to read, comprehend and learn on her own, and a refreshingly feisty self confidence.
If I never do anything else good in my life, I will go to my grave satisfied that when I was a young father I did the right thing by my daughter, my wife and my world.
Did we just play Russian Roulette and win? That's what mainstream thinking would like me to believe...and we won to the detriment of the rest of society. No. I do not accept that. I prefer to believe that my wife and I did the research, ran the numbers, and then factored in the un-factorable...our LOVE for the child we had created...and made the appropriate choices.
You don't need government's help to raise a fine person!
a. not vaccinate her
and
b. home school her.
We had already made the decision to home-birth her.
Not out of any religious zealotry, not out of ignorance, but out of being smart educated people with access to information and a drive to learn the truth about these things. We chose to commit ourselves to what was best for our daughter. The decision was not easy- there was family pressure and social stigma for anyone going that "radical." We were literally kicked out of one Ob-Gyn's office for questioning his methods. We had been dealing for months with the pressure not to "attempt" a "risky" home birth.
We then found a wonderful midwife whom we paid $300 in advance for the birth (it was illegal)...The best $300 I ever spent. We had a great pregnancy and the sweet lady was on call 24/7 and answered her phone on the first ring...and she knew a thing or two about what we were going through!
There was plenty of mainstream press telling us that our daughter (and her mother) would likely die in a home child birth or our daughter would die from some disease if we followed what we knew in our hearts to be right.
We suffered through, deflected and absorbed the barbs of friends, family and society. We educated people when we could, but were generally regarded as idiots.
Hannah is now a healthy, vibrant young woman with a Bachelor's degree in English, an ability to read, comprehend and learn on her own, and a refreshingly feisty self confidence.
If I never do anything else good in my life, I will go to my grave satisfied that when I was a young father I did the right thing by my daughter, my wife and my world.
Did we just play Russian Roulette and win? That's what mainstream thinking would like me to believe...and we won to the detriment of the rest of society. No. I do not accept that. I prefer to believe that my wife and I did the research, ran the numbers, and then factored in the un-factorable...our LOVE for the child we had created...and made the appropriate choices.
You don't need government's help to raise a fine person!
"If you're looking for something that isn't there, you're wasting your time and the taxpayers' money."
-Michael Neuman, U.S. Government bureaucrat, on why NIST didn't address explosives in its report on the WTC collapses
-Michael Neuman, U.S. Government bureaucrat, on why NIST didn't address explosives in its report on the WTC collapses